The Following User Says Thank You to Sudo15 For This Useful Post:

MS with it's effort to force Windows 10 on people by underhanded methods may just get many people to quit updating Windows 7 and 8 causing even more security problems on the net. It's sad that you can't just update but have to wait a few days to see if MS has thrown in another problem for people that don't want windows 10. If it is installed and not causing problems should you leave it alone?
Joe

MS with it's effort to force Windows 10 on people by underhanded methods may just get many people to quit updating Windows 7 and 8 causing even more security problems on the net. It's sad that you can't just update but have to wait a few days to see if MS has thrown in another problem for people that don't want windows 10. If it is installed and not causing problems should you leave it alone?
Joe

While Microsoft changed the category of the patch, it is ASUS who had a setting on the motherboard incorrect. ASUS should never have enabled SECURE BOOT on a system where Win7 was preloaded. Win7 does not support SECURE BOOT.

Well Joe, that should hopefully end in three months and I can reset my brother's PC to auto update rather than drop by every week or two and add the important updates. Thank god for GWX Control Panel or we'd all have Win10 by now.

Having Win10 is not a bad thing. I've been running it since the Insider program was first announced. As long as all my peripherals are supported on Win10, I see no reason I'd ever want to run Win7 again.

I stopped allowing "Recommended" MS updates on my Win 7 machine and it saves me a lot of time sifting through all the crap. I couldn't stop the Optional updates and now the crap is piling up there as optional and unchecked. I only allow Important and Optional and I still have be careful now of some of the recent Important updates. Lot of fun.

Microsoft Warns Windows 7 Has A Serious Problem
Earlier this year Microsoft MSFT warned users that Windows 7 has serious problems. I dismissed its claims as a desperate attempt to shift copies of Windows 10 (and I still do), but now Microsoft has warned of a new serious Windows 7 problem that is very real – even though it makes no sense whatsoever…

In short: Microsoft has made a seemingly small yet completely bizarre tweak to Windows Update on Windows 7 and confirmed it is crippling many users’ PCs.

The tweak? It switched the status of Windows 7 update KB3133977 from ‘Optional’ to ‘Recommended’. The bizarre part? Despite acknowledging the problems, Microsoft knew they would occur in advance and it has no plans to do anything about it.
It all centres around Asus motherboards.

Now 27 years old, Asus is one of the largest PC component makers and supplies motherboards to many of the world’s biggest PC makers. Recently it enabled Secure Boot in UEFI on all its motherboards. This wasn’t a problem for older PCs because Windows 7 didn’t support Secure Boot, that is until KB3133977 came along in March and enabled it.
Initially the fallout was small. Asus confirmed the problem, Microsoft confirmed the problem. But the best news was KB3133977 was an optional Windows 7 update so it had to be manually installed to take effect. The solution was simple: just steer clear of KB3133977 (aka do nothing) and you’d be fine.

Then last month – for some bizarre reason – Microsoft made KB3133977 a ‘Recommended’ update. The result was every user running Windows 7 and default Windows Update settings (the vast majority) would find the update now installed automatically.

And then everyone with an Asus motherboard was hit.

As for the bad news? It’s Microsoft’s reaction.

On the plus side, Microsoft did update the support document for KB3133977 with a warning which states: “After you install update 3133977 on a Windows 7 x64-based system that includes an Asus-based main board, the system does not start”.

But Microsoft also uses the document an opportunity to promote upgrades to Windows 10:

Microsoft's KB3133977 support page now advises users to install Windows 10 to fix their problems.

Microsoft has also done nothing to modify KB3133977 or release a new patch so users with Asus motherboards don’t run into this problem in the first place. Furthermore, at the time of publishing, KB3133977 remains a ‘Recommended’ in Windows Update for Windows 7.

Needless to say, conspiracy theorists will have a ball seeing it as yet another new way Microsoft can push users to Windows 10. Especially with upgrade rates slowing in April. This in itself is remarkable given the increasing number of heavy handed and devious ways Microsoft has been pushing Windows 10 onto Windows 7 and Windows 8 users.

Regardless, the message is clear: life is going to become increasingly uncomfortable for Windows 7 users from now on. Whether they like it or not…